A New World

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We are somewhere at the beginning of what's being called the Digital Revolution which is said to have kicked off in the 1970's when devices moved from analogue and mechanical, to digital.

Today there's more computer power in modern calculators, watches and phones than was needed to land men on the moon in 1969.

Like the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions before, this is a distinct time of great change, and it's affecting the daily lives of people all over the world.

At the heart of this revolution is a network that connects many disparate people and ideas. The Internet has, since the early 1990s, enabled us to completely change the way we communicate and do business globally. This in turn has led to huge change in the amount of information available and how it can be accessed.

Our new digital world is being shaped in three particular ways.

The first is a vast improvement in connectivity. From instant messaging and video chats across social networks, to the digital stock exchange, communications and decision-making at a social and economic level have become much faster and more global in their reach.

Secondly, greater connectivity has led to far greater access to information and as a result, the convergence of media, goods and services - as well as the devices we use to consume them.

Finally, a clear growth in the personalisation of content and individual expression has emerged. We now organise, interpret and collect all sorts of digital content. We carry volumes of it with us on tiny devices and share it with others.

So as Digital Citizens, we live in a world where devices and applications deliver an increasing volume of information, faster, in more forms and available when we choose to consume or create, publish and share it with the rest of the world.

With all of this comes new risks and new benefits to consider - such as a new social etiquette within social media, and potential privacy issues as we store more information off local machines and onto the so-called "cloud".

All these changes to the way we live, and the domestic, industrial, philosophical, cultural and scientific breakthroughs that accompany them, point to perhaps the most significant and enabling revolution yet.